Host(s): Stan Sanvel Rubin
Tape order number: V-551
Visit Date: February 16, 1990
Length: 47 minutes
Brief Summary: Gates stresses the need to de-centralize the humanities, to move away from the white, male-centered view within the American academy. He points out that diversity is at the center of what the humanities, in essence, are. He discusses the role of multiculturalism in forging alliances across ethnic identities and disciplinary boundaries. Gates gives his views regarding the literary canon in light of multiculturalism. He discusses the historical struggle of black writers such as Phyllis Wheatley against western ethnocentrism. He also talks about how he became a scholar.
Work(s) Discussed:
Writers mentioned:
As apartheid will fall, American racism and American narrow ethnocentrism will fall as well.
-- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
